SINGAPORE — The winners of this year’s Singapore Literature Prize were announced tonight (Nov 4).

For the English language categories, Joshua Ip’s Sonnets From The Singlish and Yong Shu Hoong’s The Viewing Party shared top prize for poetry, while Amanda Lee Koe’s Ministry Of Moral Panic won for fiction. Non-fiction top honours were shared by Josephine Chia’s Kampong Spirit Gotong Royong: Life In Potong Pasir, 1955 to 1965, and The Leader, The Teacher & You by Lim Siong Guan and Joanne H Lim.

For the Chinese language categories, the winners were Chow Teck Seng’s Ni He Wo De Gu Shi (poetry) and Lim Hung Chang’s Lin Gao Wei Xing Xiao Shuo (fiction). Merit awards for non-fiction were given to Ho Ngai Kiong’s Fu Qing Ping Fan De Yi Sheng and Tham Yew Chin (You Jin)’s Xin Ye Fei Xiang.

For the Malay language categories, the winners were Johar Buang’s Pasar Diri (poetry) and Yazid bin Hussein’s Kumpulan Cerpen Armageddon (fiction). Mohamed Latiff Mohamed’s Alam Kepenyairan Singapura: Pengamatan Dan Penciptaan received a merit award for non-fiction.

Finally, for the Tamil language categories, the winners were Kotti Thirumuruganandam’s Singapore Tamil Kavithai Varalaaru (non-fiction) and Mohamed Kassim Shanavas’ Moontraavatu Kai (fiction). A commendation award for poetry was given to Krishnamurthi Mathangi’s Malaigalin Parathal.

Winners receive a cash prize of S$10,000 (to be shared in the case of co-winners), merit awardees receive S$5,000 while commendation awardees receive S$1,000.

The Singapore Literature Prize is organised by the National Book Development Council of Singapore.